Al-Quds Day: The horizon is liberation, the path is resistance
On August 7, 1979, in one of the first steps taken by the triumphant Islamic revolution in Iran, Imam Khomeini called on the world’s Muslims to establish the last Friday of the month of Ramadan (this year, March 28), as an international day of solidarity with the Palestinian cause: Al-Quds Day.
The context in which Al-Quds Day came about, following al-Naksa in 1967, is that of the Zionist colonial occupation of the entire land of Palestine — as well as the loss of the positions of the resistance in Egypt and Jordan. Specifically, Egypt had embarked on a process of negotiations with the Zionist regime that culminated in the infamous Camp David accords of 1978, which diminished Palestinian rights and demands and normalized relations with the occupation entity. For its part, in 1970, Jordan unleashed the terrible wave of repression against the Palestinian refugees and their resistance, known mournfully as “Black September.”
Besieged in Lebanon, from which it was expelled in 1982, the Palestinian resistance was surrounded both by the indifference of Arab reactionary regimes and by the Zionist assault that aimed to permanently deny the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause, through manipulation and alteration of the historical record, based on the false Zionist assertion of “a land without a people for a people without a land.”
Call for global mobilization in defense of Palestine
It is essential also to recall Imam Khomeini’s appeal for the urgency of overcoming the sectarian discourse of a significant part of the Islamic community, falsely represented in a weak and hampered Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The call for Al-Quds Day highlighted the need to engage the community of believers alongside the oppressed of the world, of which Palestine is the great and unifying symbol, even beyond religious affiliation. It also came to challenge the idea that the Islamic revolution in Iran was relevant only to the Shia Muslim population. In this sense, the Imam said:
“Al Quds Day is a global occasion that not only belongs to Palestine, but is the day when the oppressed of the world protest against the arrogant.”
In the current context of genocidal aggression by the Israeli colonial regime on the Gaza Strip and all of occupied Palestine, as a necessary part to consolidate the US-led imperialist project in the region, it is urgent to intensify international solidarity and stand with the Resistance, not only for Palestine, but for all humanity.
Millions of people in Yemen have already taken to the streets to demonstrate that neither the bombs nor the state terror will succeed in crushing the dignity and will of the people. It is time to follow their example and build a global popular movement that makes this genocide impossible.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Victory for the Resistance, defeat for imperialism and Zionism, liberation for Palestine.
